Safe In Your Soul
by Conjuring Rain
Summary: Izaya Orihara tells Masaomi Kida to go into the Dark Forest to take a couple of pictures for some unfathomable reason. So Masaomi goes because he's getting paid afterwards. He brings Mikado and Anri with him. However, in the Dark Forest, they get lost and horrible things start to happen. Anri is taken. Mikado falls. The only safe place is in their souls. Will they survive?


**Safe in Your Soul**

* * *

"So, anyway, I want you to go out into the Dark Forest for a bit. I need you to take a couple of photos and then bring them to me. Don't delay or anything." Izaya Orihara tells Masaomi Kida, resting his elbows on his desk and staring intently at the boy.

Masaomi stared at him, giving him a strange look.

"Is…that a problem?" Izaya questioned him, smirking.

Masaomi shook his head. "No. Not a problem. It's just…I can't figure out why you want pictures of the Dark Forest…at night. Also, I actually _do_ have a few problems with it. It's cold outside for one thing. Plus, there have been rumors going around saying that whoever goes into the Dark Forest at night will eventually be killed by the witch that lives in there." He explained.

"You really believe that?" Izaya asked him, staring at him in a contemplative manner.

Masaomi stared right back at him, giving the raven haired man a cold look. "No. Actually…I don't," He replied. "But anything is possible in this world. I mean, there's a headless rider here in Ikebukuro."

"Exactly," Izaya says, sitting back in his chair. "Now please, proceed with your job."

"I'll get my money afterwards, right?" Masaomi questioned him seriously, giving him a dark look. He hated Izaya Orihara with every fiber of his being. He honestly hoped that Shizuo Heiwajima killed him one day.

"Of course." Izaya answered like a snake.

"Is it alright if I bring someone with me?" Masaomi asked the informant, wanting an answer right away.

"Si." Izaya replied, moving his gaze to his computer.

Masaomi immediately got annoyed when spoke in Spanish. "Adios." He said sarcastically before leaving the place, purposely slamming the door behind him, making sure to slam it nice and hard.

Izaya stared at the door, a smirk dancing on his lips.

Later…

Masaomi had gotten his friends, Mikado Ryugamine and Anri Sonohara to come to the Dark Forest with him. Masaomi held an iPhone5 in his hand, ready to take pictures while Mikado and Anri held flashlights and bags of other things they might need on their short adventure.

They were now standing in front of the entrance to the Dark Forest, Mikado and Anri shining their flashlights and whatnot around so they could see. Masaomi was actually surprised that they agreed to come even though they were really tired. He told them about the rumors, but they didn't seem to care or believe it.

Masaomi was very grateful to them.

"It's said that during the daytime, you can notice that there are no animals whatsoever here, not even birds fly across this forest," Anri said suddenly in her soft voice, a dull expression on her face. "I wonder why that is."

"The so called witch probably ate them all," Mikado talked, waving his flashlight around tiredly, letting a small yawn escape his lips. "What time is it anyway?"

Masaomi checked the time on his iPhone5. "It's a little past ten now," He breathed, pocketing his phone. "We should hurry and get this over with. We have school tomorrow."

Mikado and Anri simultaneously nodded before entering the Dark Forest, Masaomi following them from behind.

After about thirty minutes of walking in the dark and quiet forest, Masaomi stopped and took out his phone, going to the camera section so he could take a few snapshots.

"I'll just take a few snapshots and then we'll be out of here." Masaomi tells them, and then started taking some pictures, making sure the flash was on so he could actually see the pictures. He still wasn't sure why Izaya wanted pictures of the Dark Forest at night. It made no sense to him whatsoever.

Meanwhile, while Masaomi was taking pictures, Mikado sat his bags and flashlight down to get something out of one of the bags. He pulled out a wrapped up donut and took the wrapping off, using his free hand to grasp his flashlight. He then took a bite out of his donut and turned to Anri, seeing her munching on a Crunch bar.

"Hey, wouldn't it be crazy if we got lost in here?" Mikado questioned, looking up at the starry sky, past the dark trees that towered over them.

Anri nodded. "Yeah."

"That would be really stupid if you ask me," Mikado chuckled in amusement, turning his gaze away from the sky to look at her. "You brought the map, right?" He asked her.

Anri hesitated before looking through her bags wonderingly. "I-I'm not sure. I think I did." She replied quietly, rummaging through the bags.

Mikado watched her, feeling dread seep into his body. "You _think_ you did?" He spoke, his voice cracking a bit.

"Yes," Anri replied, still rummaging through the bags. When she didn't see the map she looked up at Mikado, a dull expression crawling onto her face. "I-It's not in there…I didn't bring it…" She stuttered.

"D-Don't tell me we're going to be stuck in here all night!" Mikado exclaimed in a frantic whisper, digging into his own bags to see if the map was in there. When he didn't find it he cursed under his breath. "No, no, no! This is so _not_ happening right now!"

"It's my fault, Mikado. I'm sorry." Anri looked down.

Mikado clamped his hands onto the girl's shoulder, shaking his head. "No, no! It's not your fault! Don't blame yourself! I should've thought about the map too instead of living you up to it! Don't worry. We'll get out of this forest," He tells her. "I mean, we didn't make any turns. We just walked in a completely straight line."

Anri looked up at him, that dull expression still clawing at her face. "Yes, but from which direction?" She asked slowly.

Mikado froze as realization dawned on him. He had no idea which way they came from. He was just going to have to go with his gut feeling. "U-Um…behind you I think? Yeah. Behind you. We came from that way." He released one of her shoulders to point in the direction behind her.

Anri turned her head around to look and felt rather skeptical. However, she didn't voice her doubts and just nodded, looking back at Mikado. "What do we tell Masaomi?" She asked in a whisper, watching said boy from the corner of her eye.

Masaomi was still taking pictures with his iPhone5, a look of pure concentration on his features. He really wanted to take some very good pictures for Izaya so he could get every single penny the informant owed him.

Mikado took a quick glance at Masaomi before looking back at Anri Sonohara in front of him. "We don't tell him anything! We just keep walking back the way we came from, which is that way," He pointed behind Anri again. "Then we'll eventually end up back to the street, okay?"

Anri nodded. "Okay."

"Okay." Mikado said again, getting to his feet and picking up his bags and flashlight.

Anri did the same, shivering a bit from the cold.

And then, suddenly, Masaomi walked back over to them, pocketing his iPhone5. He was smiling hugely and looked relieved and satisfied. "Okay, I got about fifty good snapshots of the Dark Forest. Now all we have to do is get out of here." Masaomi tells them, sighing.

Mikado and Anri nodded silently, putting on fake smiles.

Masaomi then turned and looked around. "Uh…which way did we come from? Were you guys paying attention?" He asked them.

"I was!" Mikado fibbed, pointing behind Anri. "We came from that way. I'm sure of it!"

Masaomi slipped his cold hands into his pockets and smiled, nodding. "Cool. Good job, buddy." He said before walking in that direction, whistling a happy tune to himself.

Mikado and Anri nervously looked at each other before following their chirpy friend.

They had no idea that they were going deeper and deeper into the Dark Forest…

About forty minutes went by and they were still walking in the Dark Forest. Masaomi had stopped whistling and was now looking around with a worried expression on his facial features.

Mikado and Anri were beginning to have giant doubts about if they were going in the right direction or not.

Masaomi suddenly came to a stop, turning to look at them with narrowed eyes. "Hey, guys…" He spoke slowly and lowly.

"Yeah?" Mikado asked, stopping as well.

"Are you sure we're going in the right direction?" Masaomi questioned them seriously. "We've been walking this way for a very long time, you know." He tells them.

Mikado suddenly sighed heavily and bowed his head. "Masaomi, I'm sorry. I lied to you. I had no idea of which way we came. I just randomly chose. I went with my gut feeling, you know?" Mikado confessed, feeling extremely foolish.

"Then why didn't you just say so?!" Masaomi exclaimed, a frown appearing on his face. "Never mind. Let's just have a look at the map!"

"We didn't bring the map." Anri replied in a whisper, bowing her head much like Mikado had just done.

"_What_?!" Masaomi snapped, getting really fearful. "Why didn't you bring the map?!"

"I forgot. Forgive me." Anri says sadly.

"It's not her fault, Masaomi so you better not blame her." Mikado tells his friend.

"Fine, fine!" Masaomi hissed, digging into his pocket and pulling out his phone. "I'll just call someone to come and get us!"

"Good idea!" Mikado told him.

Masaomi dialed Izaya's number and then put his phone to his ear, tapping his foot on the ground impatiently. The phone immediately went to voicemail. Masaomi pulled the phone away from his ear and gazed at it.

He had no signal.

"There's…there's no signal…" Masaomi whispered dreadfully, his eyes getting big and fearful.

"What does that mean?! We have to find our own way out of this Dark Forest?!" Mikado demanded to know, getting scared. "It's too dark here and it's cold!"

Suddenly, there was a loud scream of terror.

The two boys turned around to see that Anri was gone.

However, they could see the light of her flashlight in the distance, moving about crazily. They couldn't see anything else because it was too dark, they could only see the light.

"ANRI!" Mikado yelled and immediately dropped his bags, gripping his flashlight tightly with one hand and taking off after her.

"Mikado, wait!" Masaomi quickly went after him, clutching his iPhone5 tightly in his hand, not realizing that he went to video on it. His phone was now recording everything, the ground mostly.

"Anri! Anri!" Mikado shouted out desperately, trying to catch up to her. Unfortunately, the light was getting further and further away.

And then, suddenly, the light completely went out.

Mikado slowed down to a stop, breathing heavily, his eyes wide with fear and worry. "What just happened…?" He whispered out breathlessly. "What just happened…?"

Masaomi stopped beside him, trying to catch his breath. "Something took her!" He rasped out. "Something just took her!"

"Call the police!" Mikado howled frantically, looking at his friend with tears in his eyes.

"No signal, remember?" Masaomi growled back.

Suddenly, Mikado's flashlight went out.

"What the heck is going on?!" Mikado started hitting his flashlight against a tree, hoping it would come back on.

Unfortunately, it did not.

Mikado let out a shaky breath and dropped the useless thing. He then looked back in the direction of where Anri was taken. "What took her? What do you think took her, Masaomi?" Mikado questioned, tears filling his eyes. "Where do you think it took her? How do we get her back? We…we have to find her!" He then looked around, blinking his tears away. "It's so dark! I can barely see anything!"

"C-Calm down…" Masaomi stuttered, lifting up his iPhone5. He realized that it was recording and giving off some light. So he lifted it up, turned it sideways, and started filming Mikado's distraught face.

"What are you doing?" Mikado snapped.

"I'm filming. This is the brightest light I have on my phone," Masaomi answered. "This is a new phone and I just bought it, so I really didn't have time to buy any light apps."

Mikado bit his bottom lip and looked away from the phone and back towards the direction Anri was taken in. "Let's go, Masaomi. We have to find her! We have to find Anri!" Mikado starts walking stiffly, extremely scared.

"I know." Masaomi follows him, still filming everything with his phone, mostly Mikado.

They walked in complete silence for about an hour before Mikado broke it again, his voice filled with trepidation.

"What do you think took her?"

"Some crazy psycho that thought it would be fun to mess around with us." Masaomi answered, shrugging. He was trying to be calm about this, but he was shaking in fear and from the cold.

"That wasn't a person, Masaomi," Mikado tells him without looking at him. "It moved too fast to be a person…"

"Then what do you suppose it was then?" Masaomi questioned him seriously, stopping his walking. "A monster? A ghost?"

"The witch." Mikado whispered softly, his face emotionless.

"That's just a rumor!" Masaomi shouted at him, his voice echoing throughout the whole forest. He swallowed hard and spoke again, lowering his voice, "There are no such things as witches, alright? Someone is just messing with us, trying to scare us. That's all."

"Don't lie to yourself…" Mikado told him, walking forward. "You know you believe in the witch of the Dark Forest. It's the most logical explanation. She took Anri and is now going to eat her. We might be too late alrea-

Mikado suddenly let out a terrible scream and fell forward, disappearing from Masaomi's sight.

Panicked, Masaomi took a hesitant step forward, his eyes widening in shock and fear. "MIKADO!" Masaomi hollered and shined his phone light downwards. He could see a small cliff right there. If he had taken another step, he would've fallen just like Mikado.

"Mikado!" Masaomi shouted again.

He could no longer hear Mikado screaming.

Masaomi got down onto his hands and knees, shining his phone light downwards again. He could make out a small river and a body lying next to the river. He knew it was Mikado.

"M-Mikado!" He yowled, tears appearing in his eyes. _He can't be dead! He can't be! He can't be dead!_ He thought frantically.

He was about to climb down the cliff, but something stopped him.

Something large and eerie emerged from the trees on the other side of the small river. Masaomi couldn't make it out clearly, but he knew it was big, bigger than an average human.

Masaomi's breath caught in his throat as he moved his gaze back to Mikado. He could see Mikado's head moving a bit, just a little, which meant he was still alive. However, he also saw some blood too.

The creature on the other side of the river began making its way across. Masaomi could only watch in horror as it stood next to his friend's body. It then reached out, grabbing Mikado by his hair and began dragging him across the river.

Masaomi could hear Mikado yelling again in horror, screaming as if he were going to die.

He watched as his friend struggled to get free.

And then, the monster pulled him back into the trees, Mikado's yell fading into nothingness.

Masaomi started breathing again afterwards and his heart was beating incredibly loud and fast. He turned away from the cliff and started walking in another direction, still holding his phone up.

He started to feel sick and extremely scared.

He felt so…alone and vulnerable.

Masaomi started sobbing as he walked, shaking uncontrollably. After a long moment of walking, he stopped and dropped his phone on the ground, getting on his hands and knees and vomiting right then and there.

When he finished he was shaking even more. With a trembling hand, he picked up his phone and got to his feet, continuing onwards.

It was extremely quiet.

It was also getting darker the more he walked.

After about an hour of walking, Masaomi saw something up in the distance. It looked like an old abandoned cabin of some sort. There were long pointy sticks surrounding the house and the sticks had blood on them. Also, the closer he got, the more he could smell a horrible stench.

"Th-This must be…wh-where the witch lives…" He whispered brokenly, tears rolling down his cheeks. _Anri could still be alive…m-maybe Mikado too._ He thought miserably.

Masaomi made his way to the front door of the cabin, still shaking and holding his phone up for light. He opened the door and then entered the cabin, cautiously looking around.

"H-Hello…?" He whispered out. "Anri? Mikado?"

There was no answer.

Masaomi realized that he was now in an empty living room. There was nothing in there except an old raggedy doll in the middle of the floor. He hesitantly went over to it and picked it up, examining it.

It was an ugly doll.

The doll had lifeless blue eyes and a twisted smile. Its left cheek was missing and there were spots of blood on its red dress.

Suddenly, Masaomi could hear the creaking of a door from nearby. He immediately dropped the doll and turned, nervously walking in that direction.

The closer he got, he began to make out some low, eerie humming, the sound of a fire going, and the rocking of a rocking chair.

Masaomi let out a shaky breath as a door came in sight. The door was cracked open a bit and he could see light coming from underneath the door and the crack. He quietly went over, careful not to make a sound and was still recording with his phone.

Once over there, he peeked through the crack and saw a normal looking room. There was a big fireplace with a fire going, a small couch, white carpet, a red rug, wooden walls, a raggedy lamp, and a rocking chair.

There was someone sitting in the rocking chair.

Masaomi couldn't see the face of the person, but he knew it was large, as large as the thing that took Mikado away.

The thing in the rocking chair was wearing a purple gown and black socks. Its hair was tied up in a messy gray bun at the top of its head.

It was humming an eerie tune and was doing something with its hands. Again, Masaomi couldn't see what it was doing, but guessed it might be sewing or something.

Masaomi was recording this with his phone, shaking uncontrollably.

He knew it was the thing that took Mikado.

The creature continued to rock in its rocking chair, continuously humming.

And then, all of a sudden, it lifted up something from its lap.

Masaomi was horrified to see Mikado's head in the monster's hands, a little doll's body hanging from his head, giving the little doll's body a new head…_Mikado's head_.

Masaomi stared at Mikado's lifeless face, his mouth open in a silent scream, blood still dripping from where his body used to be, running down the little doll's body.

Masaomi let out a yell of complete terror.

Immediately, the creature turned its head away from Mikado's head, dropping it to the floor where it rolled over to the couch.

The monster looked right at Masaomi.

There were no words that could describe how disgustingly horrific the thing looked.

Masaomi turned and kicked the door shut. After that he started running, making a turn and opening a door. He slammed the door behind him and started running down some stairs, a horrible stench filling his nostrils.

He kept recording.

He hurried down the stairs, hearing loud footsteps upstairs. He guessed he was going down into a basement or something.

_What's going on? What's going on?_ Masaomi thought frantically as tears fell from his eyes.

When he reached the bottom, he looked around.

It was dark.

Luckily, he had the light of his phone.

He did NOT like what he saw.

All around him were bloody bodies of animals and humans. Blood, organs, and body parts were everywhere.

Masaomi swallowed back the vomit that wanted to escape his mouth and he started shaking.

He didn't want to go back upstairs because that _creature_ was up there, looking for him.

He then wondered if Anri was still alive.

"A-Anri…?" He whispered out weakly, looking around.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, something came out him from the darkness, hitting him repeatedly with a wooden baseball bat.

Masaomi let out a yell of pain and dropped his iPhone5, falling to the ground hard onto the dead bodies.

The something kept on hitting him with the baseball bat, letting out inhuman growls and grunts, growling viciously.

Masaomi cried and yelled, trying to get away, but could not.

**Two weeks later…**

Izaya Orihara sighed as he took a sip of his coffee. He had just gotten finished watching the news. The news was about the disappearance of Masaomi Kida, Mikado Ryugamine, and Anri Sonohara. They had disappeared two weeks ago, on the night they had gone into the Dark Forest.

Izaya had started to wonder if the witch was real and had eaten the three teenagers.

Eventually, Izaya had forgotten about it. Well, until he watched the news today that is.

Suddenly, Namie entered his place, carrying a small brown box with her, that cold expression on her face like always.

"Hello, Namie!" Izaya sang cheerfully, setting his mug of coffee down onto the desk before him.

"Hello," Namie says coldly, dropping the box onto the desk. "This came for you."

"Oooh! What is it? Could it be a gift from someone?!" Izaya exclaimed happily in excitement and curiosity, hurriedly opening the box.

What he found in there…

…was an iPhone5.

"I don't know and I don't care really," Namie mumbled. "I'm going to grab something from my car. I'll be back." She said before leaving.

Izaya was frowning at the phone.

He reached in and picked it up, examining it thoughtfully. Then he turned it on and figured out the pass code. Once he did, the phone unlocked and took him straight to the videos.

Izaya's frown deepened and he clicked the most recent video, playing it.

What he saw…brought complete horror into his body, but the ending was much more shocking and left him with his heart racing in great fear.

He watched as Masaomi looked around the basement full of animal and human bodies.

He watched as Masaomi was beaten to death by a baseball bat.

He watched as whatever that had killed him pick up the phone, turning it around to show its gruesome face.

And then…it spoke…

"**We're coming for you, Izaya Orihara…"**


End file.
